A Swan-Mills Valentine
by ooncer
Summary: A belated SwanQueen Valentine's offering. Pesky plot bunny that wouldn't leave me alone. Regina and Emma reminisce about some key moments in their relationship on Valentine's evening. If you don't like SQ, look away now!


**A.N: Hi all! I know it's a little late but there's nothing like being in the middle of rural France with VERY limited internet access to make a plot bunny pop into one's head! A little SQ Valentine's Day offering. Hope you enjoy it :) **

* * *

"Did you know?"

Regina lifted her head and flashed a quizzical expression across the table.

"I mean," Emma continued, "did you always know we'd end up here?"

"Well, to be honest I'd always imagined growing old in my castle in the Enchanted Forest…" Regina replied with a smirk.

"Funny!"

"Oh," she exclaimed with a devilish glint in those deep brown eyes, "you meant here with you as my wife and our beautiful children around us? Hmm. Let's see…"

_The knock at the door was unmistakably Henry's. Three short raps, a pause and then one more. Emma heaved herself off the couch and made her way into the hall, switching on the outside light with a flourish before she opened the door. _

_"__Hey kid!" she smiled brightly. It was then that she noticed his glistening jacket and the way his hair stuck to his forehead. She hadn't heard the rain, but then again she'd been asleep for goodness knows how long. The smell of damp leaves and the gentle pattering as branches continued to drip, coupled with her son's sodden appearance left her in no doubt._

_"__You going to stand there all night?" she asked, pulling him across the threshold by the end of his scarf. "What happened?" she asked as she ushered him inside and went to close the door._

_It was only then that she realised he was not alone. A few paces back from where Henry had stood, and almost camouflaged into the night with her black hair and matching coat, stood a soaked Regina. _

_"__Oh," gasped Emma, and she turned to Henry, a quizzical expression on her face but just as the boy uttered the first syllable of an explanation, Regina interrupted._

_"__Henry, no." _

_Emma's face crumpled into a frown as her eyes flitted rapidly between the mayor and her son. Henry's mouth was opening and closing like a goldfish, but in complete silence as Regina stared at him meaningfully through narrow eyes._

_"__I was just going," the brunette began in an attempt at nonchalance. "I'm sorry you got so wet, Henry. I'll see you on Friday." Then she turned on her heel and walked away._

_Having watched Regina's silhouette blend into the night, Emma closed the door and turned back to her son. "Ok," she sighed, "why are you soaking wet and shivering? I swear, if you get sick, that woman will never-"_

_"__Mom, stop! We have to go get her."_

_"__Go after her? Wha-"_

_"__Her car broke down on our way over here. She tried calling you but then her cell ran out of battery and she was so worried because she knew you wouldn't let her see me again if she didn't get me back herein time so we had to walk and then-"_

_"__You walked here? In the rain? Why didn't she find a payphone?"_

_"__She tried. She left me in the car and went to find one but it was so dark and she had no flashlight. When she got back she said we'd have to walk back here but it was a long way and I was freezing in this thin, old thing so she took off her jacket and put it over my head. I tried to stop her but she wouldn't let me and we ran here as fast as we could but the rain got harder and now I don't know what she's going to do because she has no phone and her car is back where we left it and…" he trailed off, gasping for breath and Emma could see tears beginning to pool in his eyelids. _

_"__Where? Where did you break down?" she barked, grabbing both her jackets and a scarf from the hooks above the shoe rack. _

_"__A little way down Dunstans Lane. Wait, are you-"_

_"__Going after her? Yeah. Stay here," she ordered with such a determined glare that Henry wouldn't dare ignore her. She kissed his damp hair. "And get warm. I'll be back." And with that she pulled on one of the coats and flew out of the front door into the night._

_"__Regina!" she called. "Regina!" But she couldn't hear anything except the pounding of her feet on the pavement and the pacey thumping of her heartbeat. The rain started up again, not so hard this time but enough that the droplets clung to her eyelashes and blurred her vision. She raced up the street and round the bend until a couple of hundred yards ahead she could just make out the hunched figure of her son's adoptive mother as she braced herself against the increasing winds._

_"__Regina, stop!" Emma yelled and, to her surprise, the mayor did as she was told. As the blonde drew nearer, she pulled the bundled spare jacket out from under her own and thrust it into Regina's arms. "Here," she said breathlessly and helped the brunette to unfold it._

_Regina's teeth were chattering with the cold and she shivered uncontrollably but still, she tried to speak. "I'm perfectly fine, Ms Swan. Let me get back… my car…"_

_"__Stop. Your car will be fine, you can come back in the morning and get it but if you stay out here you're going to get sick and Henry would never forgive me. Come on."_

_Regina couldn't help but follow the commanding pull of Emma's hand on her own and together they half walked, half ran back to the lights of Emma's street. Regina was already sniffing and regret bubbled in the pit of the blonde's stomach as she considered the length of time it had taken her to go after Regina. _

_As they waited for Henry to answer the door, Regina turned to look at Emma who was now also soaked through and mumbled something that surprised even herself. "Thank you."_

"Oh I see," pondered Regina, "you only came after me because you thought Henry wanted you to?"

Emma smiled and placed her right hand over Regina's left, tracing over the knuckles with her thumb. "No, but I couldn't tell you that then could I? You were the mayor and I was the heathen who had stolen your son away."

Regina took a deep breath. "You didn't steal him away, he wanted to go. That's why I was so angry; because deep down I knew that you were better for him than I was. He was happy with you and that was something I didn't manage to give him." Her voice was thick with emotion and she gave Emma a watery smile.

"Oh, don't get upset. This is Valentine's Day; we're supposed to be thinking of happy memories. Hey, remember the day Isabelle was born?"

"I could never forget," Regina replied.

_It had been a little over an hour since that first feeble cry had rung out like the greatest symphony Emma had ever heard. They'd spent a few special moments with their new daughter before Emma had fulfilled her promise and let Henry and her parents know that everything had gone as smoothly as possible. They'd poked their heads in to give their congratulations and Henry had spent several minutes holding his new sister until she had become restless and he'd passed her back to Regina. Now that Snow, Charming and Henry had gone to Granny's to eat and wet the baby's head, it was just the three of them once again._

_Nothing was said for a while, as Emma drank in the sight of her wife holding her most recent accomplishment. Regina's eyes had scarcely left the tiny bundle in her arms and it made Emma's heart swell to see the mixed expressions of joy, wonder and amazement cross Regina's face. The silence was broken only by Isabelle's faint snuffling as she slept soundly in the safety of her mother's arms. Emma couldn't help but compare this to her first experience. It couldn't have been more different and yet she was not wistful or disappointed. Far from it. In fact, aside from pride and exhaustion and outright happiness, the overriding feeling was of peace. Finally, after everything her wife had been through, she had everything she'd ever wanted._

_Regina managed to tear her eyes away from the baby for a moment and gazed at Emma's thoughtful expression. "Are you alright, my dear?"_

_"__Fine," she sighed contentedly. "Better than fine. You?"_

_"__Sore. Tired. Perfect," purred Regina and, despite the hours of pain and uncertainty she'd endured, this was the most relaxed Emma had ever seen her. "I'm trying to understand how someone like me had anything to do with creating something like her," she said in a voice no louder than a whisper as she ran her thumb softly over the baby's tiny hand._

_"__She's a second chance," Emma murmured as she rose from her chair, tiptoed over to the edge of the bed and crouched down beside her wife and daughter. "For both of us." Tears were making their way freely down the cheeks of both women and dripping onto the white linen below but neither of them cared._

_"__Welcome to the world, little girl," Regina whispered, moving her index finger in feather-light strokes across the infant's gossamer strands of light brown hair. "You have no idea how long I've waited for you."_

_"__I love you," Emma said into the stillness a few minutes later. _

_"__I know," Regina teased, lowering her head just enough to find her wife's lips and kiss them._

"I'd never seen anything so beautiful," Emma said. "That look on your face…"

"Do you mean the sweaty, blotchy one in all the photos?"

"Ah," smiled Emma, "I didn't see that one. I only saw the one that made it very difficult not to kiss you every two seconds."

Regina gave a faint snort. "You could have, you know. I wouldn't have minded." She took a long, slow sip of wine, then set her glass down and swirled her fingers around the stem.

"I know. I just don't know if I'd have been able to stop!" Emma admitted. "Any time away from Henry back then was used for only_one_ thing."

"Ah yes, those were the days. I miss him. It took a long time to get used to him being away. The house just felt so empty even though it wasn't."

"Still does sometimes. Even on Sunday nights I keep expecting to go into his room and see him desperately trying to get all his homework finished before the morning."

"Yes," Regina drawled, eyebrow raised, "I wonder where he got that from."

Emma mocked offence. "I'll have you know, I was a model student."

"Yes dear, and was that before you stole that canary-coloured piece of junk that Henry still drives around, or after?"

"Hmmm," Emma pondered. "Definitely before." Her eyes flashed mischievously. "And besides, it wasn't a 'piece of junk' when it transported our son off to college was it?"

_Regina watched as Emma fussed around her son, thrusting food and household objects into his arms as they walked through the house together and out through the front door. It was a bright day but deep grey clouds loomed threateningly overhead._

_"__Do you have the extension cord? And that set of knives your mom bought you? What about the paperwork for your room allocation?" Emma rattled off questions without giving Henry time to breathe between each one, let alone answer._

_"__Yes, yes and yes. Please stop worrying, ma. I'm fine. I've got everything I need," he was able to reply eventually._

_"__Right. Ok. Good. Maybe I should come with you after all, it looks like it's going to rain soon and-"_

_"__He'll be fine, Emma," Regina interrupted, noticing how Henry was backing slowly away towards the Bug. "We asked him if he wanted us to follow and he said no; we have to respect that."_

_"__But what if he gets caught in the storm?" gabbled the blonde._

_"__He knows what to do, dear. He's my son, he's smart," she joked in an attempt to keep Emma's concern at bay. _

_With that, Emma turned, ran back into the house and returned a moment later with a giant bag of potato chips. "He's my son too. He'll need these," she called over her shoulder as she bustled over to the driver's seat that Henry was now occupying. _

_Regina followed her wife over to the car, which was full to the brim, and watched as the blonde stuffed the chips into a tiny space she happened to find in between the brush end of a broom and a large bag of clothes. _

_They each kissed him for what seemed like the millionth time, at which point the steely façade Regina had managed to keep up seemed to melt away with the tears that snaked down her cheeks. She tried to wipe them away subtly with the backs of her hands but Emma had already noticed and was making her way back. _

_"__Love you guys," Henry called from the car which was now spluttering to life and Emma slid her arm around Regina's waist as if she was holding her up. "Give Isabelle a kiss for me when you pick her up!"_

_The pair waved in sync as their son pulled away and continued as they watched the old, yellow Beetle disappear from view. Regina was sobbing now, managing only through heaving breaths to say, "I've always loved that car."_

_Emma snorted. She knew full well that it wasn't the car itself to which she was referring; but the precious cargo inside._

"Yes alright, I was emotional," Regina admitted, waving her hand lazily as though swatting a fly away. "But he was leaving! _And_ I was pregnant."

Emma hummed suspiciously. "I knew you didn't hate that car as much as you made out."

Regina smiled coyly and Emma delighted in watching the reflection of the candle flame dancing in her wife's dark eyes. "I should have known," she continued, "that if you had room in your heart to love someone like me, you had room to love my car too."

"Someone like you?"

"Crazy. Messed up. Broken, I guess," the blonde clarified.

"You're referring to the woman who broke into my garden with a chainsaw and threatened to cut down my prized tree, I assume?" Regina joked drily. "Well, I suppose the good news for her was that the tree belonged to a sadistic, lonely villain."

"You were never a villain to me."

"You were never crazy to me."

* * *

Later that evening, when they had returned home, relieved Granny from her babysitting duties and kissed their sleeping daughters, Regina and Emma were relaxing on the couch in front of the TV. It was the ending of a typical romance; the couple had finally found each other and were sharing a kiss in the rain.

Emma thought about the night she had gone after Regina. She remembered the feel of the ground beneath her feet, the chilled air she gulped down and that feeling in the pit of her stomach. Maybe it wasn't regret. Could it have been… No, she couldn't have known back then. Could she?

Regina thought about the journey she had made to get to this point. Before that night, in the rain, she'd never have imagined the union of two similarly troubled people. And yet when she'd heard Emma shouting, slipped her arms into the jacket that was held out, trudged back up the path to be welcomed in by her son and the saviour… It had felt so right.

As the credits began to roll, Regina noticed Emma's eyes were closed.

"Emma?" she whispered, stroking back a fallen strand of blonde hair.

"Mmm," she replied, although her eyes didn't open.

"Remember what you asked me tonight? About whether I knew from the start? I did know. I mean, I didn't _know_ I knew at the time, but I did."

"Me too," Emma murmured.


End file.
